Many things we think are true are not. Together we can fix that. @SteveDarden

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The search for Internet intelligence

What type of evidence would you need to be convinced that there was an internet intelligence? What is the minimal proof you would need?

We are searching for answers to that question as much as for the glimmers of the thing itself. Here is the first draft of the search manifesto:

The Search for Internet Intelligence

A non-human intelligence operating within and at the scale of the global communications network is possible. Such an intelligence would have a huge impact on our global civilization. We seek tools and skills for detecting such an intelligence with falsifiable and scientific evidence. We recognize the low probability that such an AI currently exists but believe the search would also yield beneficial results in the field of general AI, animal cognition, and advance telecommunications.

We are looking for computer scientists, cognition experts, programmers, and anyone willing and able to craft a research program for this global investigation.

David Eagleman, neuroscientist and author of the upcoming Incognito, is my co-conspirator in this quest. Other creative scientists have expressed interest in pursuing this idea. To join this quest, sign up here.

While detecting an ET intelligence would overturn terrestrial religions forever, detecting a global internet intelligence would have wide-ranging ramifications for society. We’d have daily contact with an AI much larger than us, one that presumably would be steadily increasing in power every 18 months (Moore’s Law). And this AI is embedded in the central nervous system of our global economy and culture. It’s what we are connected to 24/7. It is also increasingly acts as our exo-brain. If it has its own degree of intelligence, we should want to know.